more broken english

[waider]

I wonder if there's a term for English words incorrectly back-formed from their plurals? Just now I came across an otherwise well-written geometry article which used the word "vertice" where "vertex" was intended; the author evidently assumed "vertice" to be the singular of "vertices".

Comments

[kirinqueen.livejournal.com]

There probably is another word, but 'back-formation' is perfectly apt. :)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how I understand the meaning of 'back-formation' in the first place.

[mopti.livejournal.com]

But I want to know which geometry article.

[waider.livejournal.com]

It was a piece on squaring the circle, i.e. constructing a square with the same area as a given circle.